Regrets
by cruciocolfer
Summary: What would you do if you could apologize for your deepest regrets? future!Klaine
1. Chapter 1

It's amazing, the things you think about right before you die.

Kurt fidgeted in his hospital bed. He had just woken up, and it looked to be the middle of the night. His hospital room was drab and boring: white walls, white bed sheets, white machinery. He glared down at the IV in his arm; what wouldn't he do to just paint the walls? Kurt had asked Rachel so many times to _please _hang some cloth or something up so he could at least pretend he was in his beautifully self-designed New York apartment.

_Rachel._ He had just realized she was still here, holding his hand. Sprawled in the chair beside his bed, she looked twenty years older than she did awake. Was she really only 35? Finn and the kids had been taking their toll as of late so he was glad, if anything, that she was able to get some rest in the hospital with him.

He thought of yesterday (or was it the day before? He didn't know how long he had slept), when all of the people he cared about were around him. His dad, Carole, Finn, Rachel, Sam, Mercedes, Santana, Brittany? They had all been there, just to say hi. To see how he was doing. He could really just die happy knowing that even without him, everything would be fine. The adoption papers for Santana and Brittany's second child would go through, Finn and Rachel's daughter would terrorize her baby twin brothers, and everything would go along the same. He could just give in to the cancer, like this, happy…..

"_No." _ He thought. _"No, it's not quite as easy as that." _He thought of all the crazy things he had been thinking about the past few nights; the people he had done wrong, the things he wanted more than anything to change.

Reaching for the stack of old yearbooks, he spent the rest of the night going through all of them. Remembering his dreams, his enemies, his friends.

He got to his senior yearbook just before dawn. He didn't even bother looking through every page, but instead skipped to the very dog-eared section that was the class of 2013. The then-Juniors. He scanned the first page, waiting for the familiar jolt of regret in his stomach. Acosta, Allison. Aguirre, Kelly. And there he was: Anderson, Blaine. Kurt looked at Blaine's face: the triangular eyebrows, the wide bright smile. You could even see a bit of Blaine's bow tie on the bottom edge of the picture. Kurt smiled at all the hearts he had drawn around Blaine's name and reached out an index finger to trace Blaine's face.

"Time to check your vital signs, dear!" said a way-too-cheery hospital nurse. Rachel woke with a start, as Kurt was subjected to needles and thermometers.

"How ya feelin', Kurtie?" Rachel said, squeezing his hand.

"Peachy." Said Kurt, rolling his eyes.

"What time is- oh my god, Kurt, I have to go! I need to feed my kids, I shouldn't have slept so long, Finn doesn't even know how to change a diaper-"

"I understand!" said Kurt, giggling. "Could you just bring the phone book over here before you leave? I want to call a few people."

She did so and ran off, already glued to her phone. The nurse finally finished and Kurt was left alone, with his memories and a phone book.

It was time to make a few things right.


	2. Chapter 2

Kurt looked out at the window and sighed.

It was a nice, sunny Saturday morning. The kind of day he and Blaine, in their twenties, had enjoyed walking hand in hand through Central Park. But no, this was not a Blaine day. Blaine days were over, way over. He just had to get that through his head.

Today he was expecting a new visitor, someone he hadn't seen in a very long time. If only she would show up…

Satisfied with his appearance (there was only so much he could do with no hair, no designer clothes and no skin treatments), he lay back down on his pillows and stared at the ceiling. Things would be better after he talked to Jasmine. He would feel better.

_He was eight. He was on a school trip, to the only fun thing in Ohio: the Westerville Amusement Park. The whole third grade was on this trip. It was the social event of the year._

_They were going on a bus with seats that fit two people each; his teacher, Mrs. Howarth, had made them sit boy-girl. Kurt did not want to sit boy-girl. He wanted to sit next to Joey. But Mrs. Howarth made him sit with Jasmine, the new girl. Kurt turned around in his seat to talk to Joey the whole way to the park. Jasmine didn't say a word._

"_Achoo!" _

_Kurt glanced up from the Pokémon cards he had in his hand to look at Jasmine, who was wiping her nose with a tissue. Shrugging, he went back to his game._

"_I said, ACHOO." huffed Jasmine, glaring at him. "You're supposed to say "bless you."_

_Joey giggled. Kurt stared at the girl like she was crazy. In Kurt's home, saying bless you was only for his great grandmother when he saw her on Thanksgiving. Ignoring her and her jab for a polite word, he continued playing with Joey until they got to the park._

"_Okay class." said Mrs. Howarth. Now, since the park is only open for schools today, we are going to let you around by yourselves." Her words were cut off from the chaos of excitement that followed her words._

"_WAIT- I'm not done. You need to choose a buddy to stay with the whole time. No one is allowed to be alone-UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Got it?"_

_Kurt turned around to smile at Joey, but he was smiling at Heather, the pretty blonde girl sitting next to him. Kurt didn't have any other friends really, and with horror he realized his only other choice was-_

"_Will you be my partner?" asked Jasmine, smiling at him. He glared at her. "Alright" he mumbled._

_They all got off the bus. Joey walked with Heather and Kurt walked with Jasmine. Kurt kept quiet with his eyes on his shoes, hating Mrs. Howarth for making them buddy up, hating Joey for not wanting to be his partner, hating himself for not feeling lucky that he was with a pretty girl. He didn't feel lucky- he wanted to be with Joey._

"…_And that's the story of why I moved here." said Jasmine, as they passed through the gates and into the amusement park. Kurt realized she had probably been talking to him the whole time._

"_Cool! Listen, Jasmine- I'm really hungry. Could you buy us some elephant ears?" Kurt asked, shoving some of the prized spending money his father had given him for the trip. _

"_Sure, but aren't you going to come with me? Kurt, we're supposed to stay together!" But Kurt was long gone. He was going to be in Joey's group if it killed him. _

_Four hours later, they were all piling back on the bus. Kurt had had the time of his life; spending the whole day with his favorite person? Winning that big stuffed banana in the ring toss against Joey, and giving the prize to him? The way his face had lit up? All perfect._

_Mrs. Howarth was doing a head count as child after child clambered onto the bus. "Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine…" she whispered under her breath. After scanning the seats, she realized who was missing._

"_Kurt, honey, where's Jasmine?" she asked._

"_I…she….umm…" said Kurt, his voice wavering. He definitely wasn't used to being in trouble._

"_She left Kurt. He had to join our group." interjected Joey, smiling at Kurt. She went to hang out with friends from Lima Heights. Blech." _

"_That is totally unacceptable!" declared Mrs. Howarth, puffing up in indignation. She turned to one of her teaching assistants: "Leave without me-I'll want to call her mother from here so she can know EXACTLY what she's done."_

_But apparently whatever had happened to Jasmine was much more severe than just running away. She didn't to school the next week. Or the week after, during their daily assemblies about being safe and never, ever walking away with a stranger. In fact, the next and last time Kurt saw her, it was at South Lima's 3__rd__ grade class graduation. She looked thin, like she might break. She had big dark bags under her eyes. Joey just laughed; Kurt felt awful._

He had never forgotten her name, and with the help of Google he had easily found her. She was now a doctor practicing right outside of the city. And, little did Kurt know it, but she was on her way up to his room. After two knocks, she let herself in.

Her face, although definitely the same face, had the look of someone who had seen awful things. Her hair was in a scraggly bun and she was stick thin.

"Hello?" she said, puzzled. "I'm sorry, I really don't remem-"

"Don't apologize." said Kurt in a raspy voice. "Just listen." He told her who he was, and reminded her of what had happened.

"…And you know, I don't really know how much time I have left." concluded Kurt, gesturing to his surroundings. "So please, just know that I have so much sorrow for what had happened. Really, you have no idea. I'm so sorry, Jasmine."

Her unsmiling face seemed to break. Her hard, cold eyes flooded with tears, but she wiped them away and sat on the edge of the bed, holding Kurt's hand.

"You know, I work with rape victims now." she whispered, looking down at their entwined hands. "I want to make sure they don't end up like me."

She offered to stay, or to at least come visit soon, but Kurt said no. He really didn't want anyone around when he died, especially someone he felt in debt to.

After many hours of crying, laughing, and catching up, Jasmine had to leave. As she reached the door, she turned around.

"Kurt?"

He looked up, his tear stained face gleaming in the fluorescent lights. "Yeah?"

"I forgive you."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Pretty short, but just trying to get back into the zone of writing. I've been so busy, but I basically finished the outline of the story and will be updating much more from now on.

Ah, Christmas in New York.

Actually, New York at any time during any season made Kurt swoon; NYADA had been the best thing that ever happened to him. This was the state where he belonged. He remembered his first Fashion Week, and the very first time anyone had ever recognized him off the street. This was all in the past, though. For the last five years cancer had had its cold, hard fist clenched around his neck.

Kurt had gone home for Christmas. It had been his first time home in close to four months, and he had been close to tears at the thought of coming home beforehand. Now that his little vacation from reality was coming to a close, he had one thing left to do.

He didn't want the former Glee club to come with him. It had been tradition to go in the past, but it just felt wrong to go with them now when it had just become so much more personal. Besides, judging from the bright flowers on the grave, he could see that they had come to visit beforehand. Kurt sat on a bench a few rows away, steeling himself.

"Are you sure you want to do this? And now of all times?" Rachel had asked, her voice imploring and almost desperate. "I know this is your first time out of the hospital in a while, but it's in no way and insult to his memory not to..."

But he had to.

But maybe he should take a walk first.

Kurt shuffled slowly, walking towards the last names at the front of the alphabet. As he walked by, he read the inscriptions on the tombstones: "A loving wife and mother." "Never to be forgotten." Did the grave he was going to visit have anything like that on it? Honestly, it had been so long, he couldn't remember.

He was just entering the C names when a particular name caught his eye. _Emma Dalton._

_Dalton._

No, maybe he couldn't do this. Maybe it was better just to call Burt or Rachel to pick him up. Maybe, just this once, he could be weak.

Weak? Did he really just think that?

Kurt might have been many things in high school, but he certainly hadn't been weak. It would be more of an insult not to go visit this grave- although inadvertently, this was the grave of a man that had given him a lot.

Somehow, he turned his legs around and stumbled back to the K names.

**DAVID KAROFSKY**

**14 OCTOBER 1993 - 22 DECEMBER 2015**

**GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN**

Kurt wished he had something to give him. Why hadn't he thought to bring flowers, as his friends obviously had? He suddenly felt overcome with the feeling of not being good enough that he was physically drawn to sit down next to the grave.

So he did. And they talked.

Karofsky had committed suicide before coming out publicly. He had always been insecure, but it was a huge shock to Lima, Ohio when one of their football players- a good kid, who just seemed to have "a little bullying problem", had ended his own life.

It's funny, because people always say that bullies are just insecure. Why does no one try and help them?

Kurt had tried; he just hadn't tried hard enough. Neither he nor Blaine had kept in contact after moving to New York. Maybe if he had...

Kurt sat there for hours, talking and apologizing and crying. It reminded him of when his dad had had his first heart attack, and he had tried to hard to get his father to hear him. Dave couldn't hear him though, it was far too late.

"I'm sorry you were so sad, Dave. I'm sorry I didn't try to help."


End file.
